


Say the Magic Word

by mousapelli



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Language of Flowers, M/M, Magical Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-23 22:11:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13199598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousapelli/pseuds/mousapelli
Summary: Two bingo prompt fills about magic, one with Otabek and plant magic, and the other with magic tattoos that appear when you meet your soulmate.





	1. Druidic Magic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [putsch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/putsch/gifts).



> Written for SASO 2017, Tic Tac Toe Bonus Round; prompts were 'Druidic Magic' and 'Soulmate Marks.'

Otabek is slow to explain what is going on with him long after any reasonable person would have noticed. Yuri had always known there was something different about him, something electric, like if he leaned in close and took a deep breath there was a taste of something on the back of his tongue like the ozone of a lightning storm.

But once Otabek is living in St. Petersburg, the little things start to add up more quickly. Otabek refusing to share his metal water bottle, and when Yuri snitches it out of his bag while Otabek is on the ice and unscrews the cap, only the pungent scent of herbs hits his nose, not the alcohol he'd been expecting. The window of Otabek's apartment is always spilling over with a riot of herbs, even in the dead of winter when it's dark half the time and freezing cold all the time. Otabek always has a wreath of rosemary hung on his door, replacing it every two weeks without fail, and when Yuri reaches up to fish the spare key off the top of the door way, he finds a stick of cinnamon instead, fresh enough to smudge his fingers orange.

"Move in with me," Otabek murmurs into the curve of Yuri's neck, making the lightning Yuri tastes in the back of his throat spill all over his skin. Yuri says yes, yesyesyes, as fast as he can force the words past his lips, and then goes in mouthing them into Otabek's skin until both of them are too exhausted to move. They lie in Otabek's bed, sweat drying on their skin, watching the shadows on the ceiling of cars going by on the street.

"When I live here will you tell me all the stuff finally?" Yuri asks quietly. Otabek is drawing on his side with a fingertip, as he often does, in a way that Yuri knows is meant to seem idle but he's learned over time to feel the familiar touch of symbols that aren't Cyrillic or English.

"Stuff?" Otabek asks mildly.

"The stuff you won't tell me about." Otabek draws Yuri closer, kissing the space just behind his ear, his temple. "If I move in, you have to tell me."

"All right," Otabek whispers, and Yuri's blood sings.

The first night after Yuri's things are shoved in the closets and bookcase next to Otabek's, Yuri sits expectant on the floor across from Otabek and watches raptly as Otabek chalks a figure of complicated lines and runes on the hardwood. He lights the end of a bundle of sage with his lighter and then shakes it out so that the smoke wafts up, stinging Yuri's nose as Otabek hands it to him. Yuri doesn't understand any of it, the runes or the herbs Otabek grinds down with the mortar and pestle, but Otabek puts his palm flat on the hardwood and draws a flower straight up out of the hardwood, Yuri's mouth falling open along with the pink flower's delicate petals.

"It's a sweetpea," Otabek tells him. He looks faintly embarrassed, as if Yuri's caught him showing off. "It's for loyalty and devotion."

Yuri grins at Otabek so fiercely it hurts, and if the way he feels is some kind of spell Otabek cast on him, he doesn't care even a little. "Teach me _everything_."


	2. Soulmate Marks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This would have been my 20th fill for this bonus round, but I missed the posting window by _45 seconds_ because I had to look up what the bird on the Kazakh flag was. ENRAGED.

Otabek's tattoos shows up just after he's home from the training camp, the outline of blossoms covering his shoulder and down his arms raw and red from appearing all at once. When he looks it up, they're plum blossoms, and Otabek has no idea what that's about.

"What brought it on?" Otabek's mother asks as she inspects it. Otabek can only shake his head, because he isn't sure. It sure wasn't love of ballet and he'd always thought his mark would have something to do with skating since it's the only thing in his head half the time. "Well, it's big enough," his mother tuts as she rubs aloe on it to soothe the heat of it. "You must have some spitfire of a soulmate out there somewhere."

Otabek bites his lip, wondering if whoever he's supposed to be connected to has a mark just as big, just as painful. He doesn't want to wish that on them, whoever they are, but he doesn't want to be alone either. He's heard horror stories about people who get their tattoo from a person who never gets one.

"Me?" Yuri says, shaking his head. "Nah, I haven't got mine yet. Why, do you? Lemme see?"

Otabek peels his T-shirt off and lets Yuri look all he wants, trying not to feel crushingly disappointed that Yuri didn't get his soul mark at the same time as him all those years ago. Maybe he doesn't understand anything, he sighs to himself, because in those whirlwind three days in Barcelona, he's convinced over and over again that Yuri is the one who caused the damn thing to appear in the first place. His heart aches when Yuri peels off his jacket during the skate they spent all night redoing and his skin is still pale and unmarked.

"Ugh," Yuri complains hours later, sprawled across Otabek's hotel bed. He keeps reaching back to scratch his shoulders and back, until he groans in frustration. "Can you get it? It's driving me crazy!"

He yanks off his T-shirt, and Otabek's breath catches at the angry red outlines of wings, the steppe eagle of Kazakhstan's flag stretched from shoulder to shoulder.

"Yuri," he gasps, tracing the outline with a finger.

"Oh my god," Yuri mutters, craning his neck to try and see. "What the HECK, Lilia is gonna FLIP HER SHIT, and…oh! Otabek, yours too?"

Otabek looks down and realizes that his mark is flushing bright with color, reds spreading over his skin, the same furious red as is spreading across Yuri's cheeks.


End file.
